This project aimed at the creation of a Teacher Proffesional Competence Common Framework is a consortia coordinated by the e Autonomous Centre of Teacher Training and Innovation or Galicia (CAFI), Spain, with 5 partners that cover the entire spectrum of practitioners in the field of education: university teacher trainers, teacher trainers in centres for lifelong learning education or private companies, in-service training managers in these and other levels of education and legislators and administrators of education in general and, teacher training in particular; managers, legislators and administrators of education in general and teacher training in particular. Both the Council of Europe and the competent National Education Authorities insist on the need to define such competence frameworks to improve the quality of education, to ensure the acquisition of key competences in all citizens and to promote lifelong learning. The development of the project takes place in the context of the the identified need within the European educational environment to create teaching competence frameworks and create the tools that enable the transformation of the in-service training to the level of excellence and to ensure a high quality education. The creation of the Teacher Professional Competence Common Framework (hereinafter MCCPD) is essential to achieve this transformation. With this tool, it will be possible to detect, more easily, the areas in which there is lack of training and, therefore, respond and paliate them. At the same time, it will be easier to implement a reliable evaluation of the instructional actions carried out. This may lead to improvements in subsequent iteractions and organize the following formative process, depending on the results obtained. The five main products of this project are: MCCPD A Needs assessment system A Comprehensive quality assessment of the training Two virtual teacher training courses A Digital and audiovisual guide of best teaching practices to support professionals´ everyday work. The complexity and various stages of pilot and planned review to ensure the maximum quality of the products make it necessary to have a duration of 36 months to the project. From a methodological point of view, we will tackle the task with a collaborative and constructivist approach. We depart from the current situation and experiential spectrum of each of the countries to agree on a common product of equal validity and relevance in all of them. We will build on the resources of the TwinSpace for group communication. We will use the methodology of design thinking and its five basic phases, from a macrovision of the project: we understand that it is necessary to 1."empathize" and detect training needs, 2."define" the objectives, 3."devise" and, therefore, develop a concept (in our case the MCCPD), 4."prototyping" and test (through the training courses and the best practices guide) as well as 5."assess" the entire design process. But also from the microvision of the project we will apply the design thinking, going through each of the five phases for each of the products (detection system, model, evaluation system, virtual courses and digital guide of best practices). The expected impact in the short term is a enhancement in the structuring and planning of the teacher training improving their skills and competences as recommended by the Europe 2020 Strategy. The strength of our partners in their ability of dissemination and diffusion of the products obtained will be enhanced by digital publications of our own (website, blog, newsletters) as well as external (international scientific journals, open content repositories such as Agrega or Merlot, portals of audiovisual broadcasting such as the youtube channel), social networks (at least facebook, twitter, pinterest and the capsulated) and multipliers events such as conferences and deployment of virtual courses. We expect approximately 150,000 teachers from all levels of education to be affected in the short-medium term. This will originate a very important impact of transformation in the classroom in the medium-term. In the long term, the multiplication factor is incalculable. The scalability of the project depends directly on the success of the products and we believe that the regular use of the MCCPD and the teaching guide by the teaching staff will significantly improve its practice. Also the implementation of systems for the detection and ongoing evaluation, sheltered by the MCCPD, will ensure the maintenance and improvement of the recursive excellence in the teaching practice.
The project was born in the Centro Autonómico de Formación e Innovación (CAFI), a member of the teacher training network. We are responsible for training around 30,000 teachers of all levels (pre university levels). Besides the CAFI, the network is made up of other 6 Centros de Formación y Recursos (teacher training centres). CAFI is in charge of organizing online teacher training activities, designing and assessing innovative instructional programmes. Within this context and following the recommendations of the Council of Europe, the department of training and innovation at CAFI developed a framework of teacher competences in 2015. Several universities have similar proposals, but they often lack an essential component: the context (the school). Lifelong teacher training should go beyond transmission of specific knowledge. It is essential to reflect all their functions in a holistic training that takes into account all the needed competences for their job, as well as the context and the team. Bearing this in mind, the CAFI set out to generate a Framework of Teacher Competences. This was a "common" framework inasmuch as it would be useful to agents of initial teacher training (universities) and agents of state and public teacher training. The term also intended to be global and validated for different European contexts, allowing us to export our proposals at the same time as we imported cross-border solutions. To attain this global aim we allied with the following international partners: Universities: PHW - Pädagogische Hochschule Wien, Viena, Austria IPL - Instituo Politécnico Leiria, Leiria, Portugal Teacher training centres: LFEE - Le Francais en Ecosse, private teacher training centre in Edinburgh, Scotland UPC - Ugdymo Pletotes Centras, public lifelong centre in several areas of expertise in Vilnius, Lituania Legislative agent in education at a regional level: Consejería de Educación, Junta de Castilla y León. With all these partners, we designed the following objectives for the project: 1. We developed a Common European Framework of Teacher Competences (hereforth MCCPD) made up of 9 competences and 31 subcompetences articulated around 3 levels of performance, defined in descriptors of competence level. 2. We created a system to assess initial training needs according to this framework, which takes into account both real and sensed needs. This system was implemented with self-assessment forms and self-reflection questions linked to descriptors of a specific competence level. 3. The framework was translated into a set of rubrics to assess teaching practice, which can be used for self-evaluation and hetero-evaluation by many different agents. These products were developed in the 6 official languages of the strategic association: English, German, Spanish, Galician, Portuguese and Lithuanian. Later, as outlined in the initial project, a practical turn was taken, and we generated: 4. Two online courses, one for new teachers and one for mentor teachers. These courses were tested in the CAFI during 2017/2018. 5. A good practice in teaching guide, with multimedia, multilingual examples which illustrate each and every one of the competences and subcompetences defined in the MCCPD. The results reached in the lifetime of the project have been highly satisfactory. The Framework has been presented to university students in the two contexts of further education level of the association, and teachers have assimilated it as a framework to develop their syllabi. In the Pädagogische Hochschule Wien, they succeeded in proposing and integrating the framework within the context of their KA3, PREPARE to elaborate audiovisual teacher portfolios. The project has also left its trace in institutional programmes in the context of educational regional policies: from the CAFI and in collaboration with the Junta de Castilla y León the framework was implemented in the context of Observa-acción, a job-shadowing programme within and among schools. 12 Galician and 12 Castillian schools participated in this programme. Likewise, and following the spirit of the porject, the teacher training network in Galicia reached and agreement to work with universities and try to find a common thread related to competences that articulates study plans both in initial and lifelong teacher training. Both through these actions and thanks to dissemination through the website, university teachers and their students, and teachers in primary and secondary will be able to use the resources, modifying and adapting them to best suit their needs and understanding their training and tasks in a global, holistic way to reach excellence in education.